The New York Times
Majestic...leaves one feeling that the generosity of spirit he saw in a brutal country is not so much lost as waiting once more to be found.
New York Magazine
The Grapes of Wrath is a lesson in history, stagecraft, and truth that we cannot afford not to learn.
The New York Post
This is, overall, a thrilling theatrical achievement that gets its power from the still sharp relevance of its human message...
NY Times
...majestic...leaves one feeling that the generosity of spirit he saw in a brutal country is not so much lost as waiting once more to be found.
NY Post
This is, overall, a thrilling theatrical achievement that gets its power from the still sharp relevance of its human message...
NY Magazine
THE GRAPES OF WRATH is a lesson in history, stagecraft, and truth that we cannot afford not to learn.
Time Magazine
Steinbeck's best novel.
Library Journal
Journey with the Joads for 21 hours in this first unabridged version of Steinbeck's classic. Controversial, even shocking, when it was written, the work continues to be so even today. The keen listener can hear why, because it poses fundamental questions about justice, the ownership and stewardship of the land, the role of government, power, and the very foundations of capitalist society. As history, this brings the Dust Bowl years to life in a most memorable way. Steinbeck (Travels with Charley, Audio Reviews, LJ 11/15/94) is a master storyteller and manages to engage the listener's sympathy with this epic story. Reader Dylan Baker, who gives each character a distinctive voice, draws the listener in. His female characters, especially the minor ones and Rose of Sharon, don't seem as authentic as his wonderful evocation of the fictional Tom, Ma, and Pa. But his voice is easy to listen to, and he is faithful to the characters' backgrounds and the plains region. The music that ends each individual tape is perfect for the story. This program is a well-produced, affordable, and worthwhile addition for any library with a serious audiobook collection.--Nancy Paul, Brandon P.L., WI
Peter Monro Jack
It is a very long novel, the longest that Steinbeck has written, and yet it reads as if it had been composed in a flash, ripped off the typewriter and delivered to the public as an ultimatum. Steinbeck has written a novel from the depths of his heart with a sincerity seldom equaled.-- New York Times Books of the Century, 1939
From the Publisher
"It is Steinbeck's best novel, i.e., his toughest and tenderest, his roughest written and most mellifluous, his most realistic and, in its ending, his most melodramatic, his angriest and most idyllic. It is great in the way that Unlce Tom's Cabin was great. One of the most impassioned and exciting books of the year." —Time
"One comes away moved, indignant, protesting, pitying. A fiery document of protest and compassion, as a story that had to be told, as a book that must be read." —Louis Kronenberger, The Nation
FEB/MAR 99 - AudioFile
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in l940, this famous protest novel is a natural for audio. The story is told almost entirely in the country vernacular of the destitute workers of the 1930's--some 300,000 strong--who had been driven from their farms and were pouring into California to face hunger, squalor and humiliation. (An inept narrator, reading their dialogue, could easily have made them sound like the Beverly Hillbillies.) Instead, Dylan Baker's sensitive interpretation has given them the dignity--even the nobility--that Steinbeck intended. He has also avoided another serious pitfall: overdramatizing some of Steinbeck's speeches in the last half of the book, avoiding what the Joads called "a preacher voice." The listener is hardly aware of occasional lapses into sentimental prose as Steinbeck delivers his many impassioned sermons against the selfishness and greed of the rich. Altogether, this is an outstanding performance; John Steinbeck would have relished it. J.C. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine
